Sir, – Reading yet again about the disgraceful farce surrounding the proposed relocation of the National Maternity Hospital to the St Vincent's campus and the ongoing saga of "Will we own the land, or won't we?" ("Watchdog to examine spending on new National Maternity Hospital", News, August 25th), isn't it about time that we either put a compulsory purchase order on the land and started building, or abandoned the idea of relocating to the St Vincent's site?
The rationale for putting the NMH at St Vincent’s is that it will be co-located with a teaching hospital. But are we putting the pursuit of perfection in the way of the good?
Wouldn’t an actually built, upgraded, standalone, modern NMH located on the RTÉ campus, close to St Vincent’s, be better than an NMH, ideally located on the St Vincent’s campus, but which is starting to look as if it will never be built? – Yours, etc,
DAVID DORAN,
Bagenalstown,
Co Carlow.